JAPAN

Foreign Currency Reserves Increase: The nation’s foreign exchange reserves rose to a record high for the 14th straight month as the Bank of Japan continued buying dollars to curb the yen’s appreciation against the U.S. currency. April’s increase was smaller than the one in March, when the dollar started nose-diving against major currencies after the Mexican financial crisis. Currency traders and economists expect Japan’s foreign reserves to keep swelling because Japan-U.S. trade talks scheduled for Wednesday are unlikely to yield substantial measures to slash Japan’s politically sensitive trade surplus. The Japanese government’s foreign exchange reserves rose $12.147 billion in April from March to a record $153.670 billion, the Ministry of Finance said.